


a fever i am learning to live with

by na_scathach



Series: the underground [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo), also a tumbr post, based on a richard silken poem, girl help, no plan for this. none.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27570148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_scathach/pseuds/na_scathach
Summary: leo is at the wrong end of a very long tunnel
Relationships: Jason Grace/Leo Valdez
Series: the underground [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793698
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	a fever i am learning to live with

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leovaldez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leovaldez/gifts).



> its ur donnacha, back with. this? anyways the object of my eternal affections posted [this post](https://bunkernine.tumblr.com/post/634118008162451456/there-is-a-richard-siken-quotepoem-that-reminds) and i thought about it all week, so now u buncha unlucky lads have this. no major trigger warnings, but this does deal heavily in grief and loss, so take care of urselves babes <3

“Do you know that dying tastes like the color purple?”

Leo stares at his scuffed boots, dark and dirty, the once shiny leather faded and worn. Leo assumed the leather was once shiny at least. He got them from Goodwill when he was 14 and on the lam from a shitty foster home. His shoes at the time, converse that felt a size too small, did nothing to protect him from the frigid Michigan winter. There were holes in the soles and snow always seeped into soak his socks. So, one day, he dodged into a Goodwill, his last wad of cash wadded up tightly in his fist. He walked quickly, shoulders held high, trying to pretend like he owned the money he was carrying. 

The boots are black. Work boots. The laces are dark brown and he’s tied them over the bottom of his jeans. 

He swings his legs, the tips of the boots not even brushing the ground. He has a moment to curse his short legs before computing what was just said. 

“Nope,” Leo says truthfully. Death didn’t taste like much for him. If it did, he doesn’t remember. Maybe it did. Leo doesn’t remember a lot about his death. 

“Well, it does,” jason tells him. “Very. Purpely? Yeah”

Leo humms, tangling long, thin fingers together, dragging a bitten nail down the webbing of his left hand, right between his index and thumb. “How can something taste of purple?” he askes jason, almost absentmindedly. 

He flexes his fingers. His knuckles pop and jason doesn’t answer. The bandages on Leo’s hands, mostly preventive and not actually there for any wounds, are stark against his skin. Leo doesn’t dare look up. 

“I have no idea,” jason answers finally and Leo lets out a breath he didn’t know was still in his chest. Air rattles out from between his teeth and he closes his hands into fists again. 

Leo knows, that once he looks up, the moment will finish. That whatever strings are holding this all together will snap and Leo will plunge into darkness. He keeps his eyes firmly on his boots. 

He’s sitting on a rock. In Central Park. A moderately sized rock, which is why his legs swing. He can hear New York, alive and clamoring and begging for attention, but it seems more muted than normal. Like someone shoved ear-mufflers on him. Leo hates ear-mufflers. They’re completely useless and make him look like an idiot. People who wear ear-mufflers should not be trusted. 

It’s November. Leo’s in college, you know? Got his GED, worked his ass off to get into MIT and this is how he spends his Fridays. In Central Park, in complete darkness, staring at the dirt. 

_ But it’s worth it,  _ his traitorous brain hisses,  _ it’s so worth it. anything for another 5 minutes. anything to make the pain stop _

Anything. 

“You should stop,” jason tells him gently. Jason, contrary to popular belief, was very gently. He was only violent when he had to be, when he was called upon to save someone or fight some badass villain. Real superman stuff. Heroic and Courageous, standing up for the little guy and dealing out ass-whoppings for the bad guys. A real  _ superhero _ . 

“And you should shut up,” Leo says back, his voice containing more venom than he realizes, and he immediately regrets it. “Sorry. Rough week. Midterms”. 

He wonders if that explains it and he can’t look to see if jason is satisfied with his answer. The silence grows thick between them, but Leo doesn’t mind for once. 

It’s the  _ knowing.  _

That jason is here. Right here. Warm and his arm pressed against Leo’s. Leo is leeching warmth from him, or maybe it’s the other way around, but it doesn't matter because Leo can feel jason’s weirdly bony elbow against his, the faint ( ~~_ ghosting _ ~~ ) feeling of fingers against his hand. 

He’s here, here, here, here, here, here-

Leo has, historically, not dealt with either death or love well. 

Death involved a lot of running. A lot of blame. A lot of self-sacrifices and the stench of gasoline on his clothes even when he was nowhere near gasoline. Death was hunting Leo and Leo was hunting death, a game of cat and mouse where Death would always win. 

Love was the same. Love, for Leo, has never gone well enough for him to trust it. It always ends in flames of his own making, or people just getting  _ bored  _ of him. Getting bored of the same jokes, same rehashed lines, and crippling need to be loved. Tired of what Leo could and couldn’t offer. 

People didn’t want a manic man-child who can run from his problems but never move on from them. And, the people who did stick around? Always got the short end of the stick. Leo was one bad joke and relationship fail away from a complete and total car crash. He was driving, blind, down the longest tunnel ever envisioned by man and he was never taught that you  _ need  _ to grab the steering wheel. Both hands, 10 and 2, just grab the fucking wheel Leo-

jason leaves his hands on Leo’s shaking ones. Slightly bigger, ha ha Leo, and his fingers weren’t as thin, not as spindly. More solid. Warm. He holds Leo’s hands like how someone holds a baby. Like if you dropped it, it would crash and crack against the floor and a lot of people would suddenly be  _ very _ angry with you.

“You should stop,” jason says again, not gently, because he’s pleading now. Pleading has never looked good on jason- or at least he assumes. He can’t see jason’s face. jason sounds lost, like he doesn’t know what to do, which feels absurd. He’s _ jason grace _ . Superman. 

“I can’t,” and this is the truth. If Leo was in confessional, he’d get a 10/10 from god or telling the truth. “I can’t, jay”

He can’t. If he stops, if he stops coming here, his game of hide-and-seak with death will end, and Leo will be falling-

And would that be a bad thing?

And then, very quietly- “i dream about you”

jason sounds very young. Too young. Leo has never felt young, at least not in the traditional sense. He lost his right to be carefree and safe when he killed his mom, in his opinion. His breath, warm and moist, brushes up against Leo’s ear as he tells him this and-

Leo looks intensely down their interlocked hands. 

“Aw, shucks,” he chuckles, tightly, “Jay, I never knew scrawny and annoying was your type”

jason knocks his head into the side of Leo’s head. If Leo looked to the side, even a little bit, their eyes would meet-

He squeezes his eyes shut, just in case. 

“Please,” and Leo can’t believe he’s pleading now. He’s almost certain it isn’t a good look on him either. “Please don’t”

“Do you want to know what I dream about?”

No “Yes”

“Remember when you used to stay awake for three days at a time, building the argo, and the only way to get you to come out and eat was to lure you with that fucked up mario game?” and Leo does remember. He used to beat jason at it all the time. He was lousy as hell with technology. ”You used to play for 10 minutes in your room and then pass out? I dream about that. I dream about you, and you being happy, and you taking care of yourself. I dream about the times you fell asleep on my shoulder because you were so tired, because you thought you had something to prove, that you had to work yourself to death just to prove to yourself that you weren’t completely worthless”

Leo shuts his eyes tight, so tight that his eyes start to burn. 

“I dream about what could have happened if I wasn’t a coward”

Leo- 

Doesn’t know what to do. He’s dreaming, or he’s not, but it doesn’t matter because it’s so fucked up. Leo always comes so close to happiness and then it’s snatched away like he’s being chastised. 

jason takes his hands away from Leo’s, and instead cups his face, thumbs brushing over Leo’s wet cheeks. He turns Leo’s head, so that if Leo opened them he’d be staring at jason. He can almost imagine it. White-blond hair and a jagged upper-lip scar. Wire-frame glasses that make him look like a nerd and bright, electric blue eyes. His hands are rough on Leo’s face, and Leo hates that he’s crying. He has an image to maintain. 

“Open your eyes, Leo”

“No”

“Leo”

“Fuck off, superman”

“ _ Stop it _ , Leo,”

“No!” and this  _ no _ is forceful, tearing out from Leo. He’s not doing this, he’s not letting go again. There is no fire and it’s the middle of central park, he will not lose another person because of his mistakes. He’ll keep him safe and there will be no more blood on Leo’s conscience. 

jason doesn’t say anything after that, and instead, simply kisses Leo. 

His lips are chapped and cold and real and Leo is still crying. He removes his hands to hide them in jason’s jacket, shaking like a building with no foundation. He is on the verge of collapse. jason kisses him. 

Leo is not in the habit of kissing people- well, it’s more that people aren’t in the habit of kissing Leo. But. neither is jason, so it’s messy and imperfect, but perfection is unattainable and fake. Leo prefers this, all force and emotion, no skill. The clanking of teeth and the imprint of Jason’s scar on Leo’s lips. 

Leo deepens the kiss because he knows, he knows, he knows, like how he knows what’s wrong with a car before he even pops the hood, or the exact amount of seconds in 7 months or how Piper likes her veggie burgers-

He’s not dreaming, and so that’s worse. He’s grabbed the wheel and he’s driving it down this tunnel, knowing there’s a brick wall at the end of it. No light. But for now, the artificial lights on the roof of the tunnel guide him and he kisses jason. And he kisses him. And he kisses him. And again, and again, and again-

He shifts onto his knees, and jason’s hands are buried in his hair and the brush of jason’s tongue against his is electrifying and real and he’s still fucking crying. 

They separate and Leo leans his forehead against jason’s. His knees dig into the rock and he feels so real, so solid under him, so why-

“Please,” and this is Leo’s final plea for him to stay. Leo is a fucking train wreck in action but jason doesn’t seem to mind. He needs him. God, he needs him. Fuck, fuck, fuck, please-

“Love you”

Leo opens his eyes. 

He’s alone. 

He’s falling and falling, on his hands and knees on this rock because there’s no one left to keep him up. There’s nothing. There’s everything. There’s glass in his lungs that taste like the ashes from his mom’s workshop and Leo wants to disappear, turn to ash because this isn’t a dream and Leo wishes it was-

He’s sobbing. Nothing pretty about it. Heavy chest and hiccuping breaths, eyes blurry with tears and fuck, fuck he’s gone, he’s gone and it’s just him now. No matter how much he’ll love other people or how many people love him it’ll never be enough, there’s a fucking hole now, huge and gaping and still so raw and bleeding. 

The back entrance to the Underworld is visible from here. It’s why Leo came to this spot after all. Leo wants to go up and start digging, tearing, and burning until he’s in the underworld and Jason is back-

He screams into his hands. He feels like he’s burning alive and that he’s freezing all at the same time. He feels like he’s running a fever and it’s killing him-

Jason Grace is dead and Leo is at the wrong end of a very, very long tunnel. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> also, [my tumblr](https://deithe.tumblr.com/) come say hi <3


End file.
